Smurf Life Preview

Not all that different from thug life, surprisingly.

Riddle time. What’s blue and cheerful and a game on iOS featuring the popular Smurfs characters? If you guessed Smurfs’ Village, you’re way behind on the times. The correct answer is actually Smurf Life, an upcoming sequel to the holy-crap-this-is-popular first game. And as an added bonus, it too will have nothing to do with the recent (and awful) live-action film!

Although Smurf Life will possess the same style of farm-sim gameplay as its predecessor, it will also contains some new and interesting narrative hooks. The ever-devious Gargamel has put a spell on the Smurfs’ habitat, shrouding it in darkness and making it a generally unpleasant place to live. Ostensibly lacking enough nightlights to solve the problem himself, Papa Smurf created a new type of Smurf to battle this evil.

Players will be in control of this new Smurf, with the ability to build and customize it to their heart’s content – other than changing the skin tone, I presume. Regardless, rescuing other Smurfs will be your primary mission, and the subsequent celebrations of each character you save will chip away at the looming darkness.

Having recovered from a pretty bad Smurfs’ Village addiction not that long ago, I’m pretty excited to check this one out. There isn’t a release date just yet, but developer Beeline has said the game will launch by the end of this year. That’s more than enough time to forget that that Smurfs movie ever existed, but not quite enough to forget that there’s a sequel en route.